1. Field of Invention
This invention relates to diagnosis/prognosis and remediation of electronic systems.
2. Description of Related Art
Customer satisfaction can be improved and maintenance costs reduced when problems with electronic systems or devices, such as document processing systems or devices including copiers, printers, scanners, facsimile machines and the like, can be fixed before the problems become serious enough to warrant a service call by the customer. Conventional systems enable such devices to call for service automatically when sensors detect certain operating parameters outside of permissible ranges.
In these conventional systems, telephone lines and modems are used by the devices to call a service center and report operating condition status and device usage data. This provides the customer information about how their devices are being used and provides the service center with information about operation of the devices.
The information used by a particular device for diagnosis of that device consists entirely of digital fault codes, which are stored in the device""s non-volatile memory. The digital fault codes are generated by a control system of the device that monitors and analyzes the real-time operation of the device. Each digital fault code is a parameterized xe2x80x9csnap-shotxe2x80x9d of the device at a given instance of time. The digital fault codes are carefully designed and selected so that a great deal of information may be extracted from each digital fault code.
The systems and methods of this invention provide for automated diagnosis/prognosis and remediation of failures or potential failures in electronic systems.
In various exemplary embodiments, the systems and methods of this invention automatically transmit operating data about an electronic system or device, such as an analog or digital copier, a printer, a scanner, a facsimile, and the like, so that a remote diagnosis of the system or device is carried out by a diagnostic system using the transmitted data.
The systems and methods of this invention separately and independently provide for automated diagnosis/prognosis and remediation of failures/malfunctions or potential failures/malfunctions in electronic systems or devices in which diagnosis/prognosis is performed by signature analysis.
The systems and methods of this invention separately and independently provide for automated diagnosis/prognosis and remediation of failures/malfunctions or potential failures/malfunctions in electronic systems or devices in which signature analysis is performed by a remote diagnostic expert system.
The systems and methods of this invention further provide for automated diagnosis/prognosis and remediation of failures/malfunctions or potential failures/malfunctions in electronic systems or devices in which an entire waveform is sent to the remote diagnostic system for analysis.
The systems and methods of this invention separately and independently determine and execute an appropriate action based on the results of the diagnostic analysis. Such actions could include, for example, guiding the customer through a repair procedure, automatic scheduling or dispatch of service, parts and/or consumables and automated remediation of faults, for example, as discussed in copending U.S. application Ser. No. 09/464,597, which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.
Additionally, this invention separately provides systems and methods that present the results of the failure prediction, diagnosis or remediation, locally, or, remotely, such as, for example, on a computer user interface, via e-mail, via a web page, via a paging service or cellular phone, or the like, and that store the results, for example, in one or more databases, servers, or device history logs. Therefore, in various exemplary embodiments, the systems and methods of this invention are capable of performing intelligent self-diagnosis, correction and notification of device failure or malfunction.
This invention separately provides systems and methods that determine whether a remote transmission is required for diagnosis. In various exemplary embodiments, a preliminary analysis of device operating data is performed to determine whether a remote transmission is required.
This invention separately provides systems and methods that automatically diagnose and/or predict machine failures or malfunctions based on a device operating data.
This invention separately provides systems and methods that determine an appropriate action based on the results of the diagnostic/prognostic analysis.
This invention separately provides systems and methods that allow an automatic scheduling of service, parts and/or consumables to be provided to an electronic system.
This invention separately provides systems and methods that guide a customer through a repair procedure.
This invention separately provides systems and methods that allow an automated remediation of faults, either completely or partially, and with or without human intervention.
This invention separately provides systems and methods for presenting the results of the failure prediction, diagnosis or remediation either locally or remotely.
This invention separately provides systems and methods that allow electronic systems to be interrogated and controlled remotely over a network for acquiring data usable in failure prediction, diagnosis and/or remediation.
This invention additionally provides systems and methods that pool data related to a plurality of electronic systems to accomplish failure prediction, diagnosis and remediation of distributed electronic systems.
In various exemplary embodiments, at any point during the operation of an electronic system, the diagnostic/prognostic systems and methods of this invention can be invoked. At this time, device and job data are collected from the electronic system. The device information can be obtained from the device that is being diagnosed and/or from one or more knowledge servers or databases that contain device specific information. Additionally, population information from a fleet of similar devices may be obtained via a network connection. Having accumulated the job data and device data, a preliminary analysis is performed to determine an initial diagnosis of the electronic system.
After obtaining the initial diagnosis, the diagnostic system determines whether a remote transmission is required. If a remote transmission is required, the data is transmitted to a remote diagnostic system. Then, the remote diagnostic system analyzes the data and outputs results of the analysis. The output results can be a request for either a customer repair action or a customer service engineer repair action, or, alternatively, a revised set of operating parameters to correct a failure or prevent a potential failure. Upon completing one or more, or any combination, of these actions, the device verifies its operation and again checks to ensure the repairs have been completed successfully.
It should be noted that, at any time during the diagnostic or remediation process, additional data can be obtained from the electronic system or device by interrogating or controlling the device.
These and other features and advantages of this invention are described in or are apparent from the following detailed description of various exemplary embodiments.